Those of you who travel abroad and frequent bars, pubs, and get drunk with the locals, as does Poldark Maximus, can identify with this one – the frequent comment that most Americans are largely naive about the sordid ways of the world and the how we let "laws" get in our way.
We are seen by many as a bunch of blue-eyed believers in the goodness of man and – much worse – believers that our country derives great strength from the rule of law. Just laws, established via a democratic process, enforced with equanimity = structural soundness at the core of the nation. One supposes if you have to be scorned for anything, believing in a system of laws is a great flaw to have.
That is why scoff-laws, basically ignoring the existence of a law or turning a “blind eye” while laws are violated, are a great loss to our sense of “Nation.” It is therefore disheartening to see laws being scoffed at with great regularity. It starts with taking a cell phone into your right hand while steering with your left at 75mph in a state that has laws against such behavior, such as Connecticut. Besides being dangerous, it represents a citizen saying, “Screw you – screw the law, screw society – it’s my world and my world only.” Well, that’s how it starts. Rudy Giuliani recognized the role petty crime played in the overall sickness of New York City and cleaned up town from the bottom up, as well as attacking serious crime with a vengeance. As an aside, we probably owe this man more for the salvation of big-city society from the excesses of the 70’s and 80’s than any human alive. Let’s not forget this as we search for leadership down the road. The immigration issue is going to play directly to Rudy’s wheelhouse.
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Article comments
1 - sal m
great stuff...another problem we have with scoff-laws are the parents who when faced with the reality that their kid(s) have done wrong they chose to say "not my kid" or worse "how can we get them out of it?" thus perpetuating and exacerbating the problem at the same time.
2 - Dave Nalle
The Germans have always been great admirers of the 'rule of law'. It's led them into one repressive regime after another since the middle ages.
The American value which is far more important than slavish adherence to the rule of law is the belief in the freedom of the individual and the ability of each citizen to make determinations of how to live his own life. Ideally our government should respect the sovereignty of individuals more than it does the rule of law, because law should serve the people the people should not be made to serve the law.
Dave
3 - Richard Brodie
Ideally our government should respect the sovereignty of individuals more than it does the rule of law, because law should serve the people, the people should not be made to serve the law.
Unfortunately, some stupid and oppressive laws are being more rigidly enforced on American citizens than on illegal aliens. Take individual sovereignty violating property use codes, for example, as they pertain to engaging in some kind of harmless and inoffensive "business" activity on one's own private residential property.
City code enforcement people, not being gun toting law enforcement types, are chickenshit to go into the Spanish ghettos that exist in every Southwestern U.S. community, looking for pretexts to fine or shut down code violators. Consequently all kinds of small Mexican entrepreneurs can fluorish, in time honored American tradition - with thriving backyard car repair operations, carpentry shops, granite fabricating, etc.
Meanwhile predominately non-Hispanic neighborhoods receive the full brunt of these bureaucratic attentions, thereby making it more difficult for CITIZEN parents to try and help THEIR children get a start in some kind of productive activity, in cases where they may not have the resources to set up from the outset in some commercial or industrial facility, but instead need a financially protected period of incubation and gradual growth before establishing a full-blown "legitimate" business.
This kind of thing represents a case where the government operates to deny fulfillment of the American Dream to five or ten generation American citizens, but acts as a facilitator of that ideal for illegal immigrants.
4 - Joey
Gee Whiz... so does stopping the illegal drug trade within our borders. Supple and demand. Stop using drugs, save your brain, drive the cartel's, and all the associated crime, elsewhere.
I guess if this was applied to illegal aliens it would work too.
Food for thought.
This is your brain... (picture of an egg)
This is your brain on drugs (picture of a fried egg)
This is your neighborhood after everyone around you has fried their brains on drugs and are seriously addicted. (snippets from your local evening news)
5 - Bliffle
They have glorious laws in Mexico, stating the highest ideals of mankind in many cases. And they revel in breaking those laws. This is part of the heritage they bring, to replace our heritage, which they laugh at.
6 - Dave Nalle
Joey, using the ridiculously failed drug war as your model for a good deterrent system was probably a mistake.
Dave
7 - Charles
Dave, You write, "The Germans have always been great admirers of the 'rule of law'. It's led them into one repressive regime after another since the middle ages."
How many oppressive regimes was that? I only know of Hitler. Before Hitler, was the German government really much more oppressive than the norm in Europe? England and France were the exceptions. Rule by unelected monarchies and the aristocracy was still the norm.
Didn't things such as the loss in World War I, the overly punitive Versailles Treaty and the hyperinflation of the 1920s, followed by the Great Depression, set the stage for the rise of Hitler? Don't forget that area of land we now call Germany was invaded repeatedly during the 100 years war and the 30 years war, leading to psychological traumas in the psyche of the people that probably had something to do with what they did in the first half of the twentieth century. There is a discipline called psych-history that investigates such issues.
So Dave, would you like to dispense with the Rule of Law and go back to ancient Rome, where generals fought it out to see who would rule?
Dave, the Rule of Law not only applies to government officials, but to everybody. This is because anybody could someday grow up to be a high government official. You remember, the way Abraham Lincoln had been a rail-splitter in his youth?
I recommend everybody google Mark In Mexico and Rule of Law to see his analysis of Mexico and the Rule of Law.
8 - Poldark Maximus
Charles, Your comments on German society are well taken. One could go so far as to say that the Germans have a healthy "obsession" with rules and laws that survived 12 yeears of Nazi domination. During the Nazi era, the National Socialists found it tough going to bring the judicial system,under their control. It did not happen easily and did not happen over night. In the end, the system was a sham and several top jurists received their rewards at Nurnberg. Consider that --- 12 years --- that would be the same time span as 1994 to our current day. A heartbeat in the scheme of things.
What are the lessons here? 1) Perverting a judicial system in a Western democracy can be done but with difficulty. 2) The judical system must remain separate from the legislative and executive branches of government --- ahhh, did we ever get this one right. Look for that separation in other "democracies" and what steps those nation-states take to preserve that separation. 3) Such separation does not exist in Islam. And cannot be cured in its current configuration no matter how hard they try. Period and end of sentence. PM